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I made posts back in 2020 saying that the US was falling behind in producing superstar talent. At the time people argued stuff like “Guys like Tatum are still young, you’re comparing a 21-year-old Tatum to a 30-year-old LeBron, its not fair”
But at this point, I don’t think anyone can deny that something’s seriously wrong with US player development and the lack of true american superstars. The US hasn’t produced any true superstars in probably a decade or so. Just look at the lackluster potential 2028 Olympic roster
I mean lets look at the players: If we exclude the aging stars from the previous era and just look at players under 32, the guys that should be in their prime now, the top 5 are probably (no order):
Jayson Tatum
Anthony Edwards
Jalen Brunson
Donovan Mitchell
Cade Cunningham
Lets be honest, thats a disastrous group. How far back would we have to go to find a weaker group? Probably the early 1980s.
And now people argue “It’s not that the U.S. got worse, it’s that international players got better.”
But these two things aren’t mutually exclusive. International talent improving doesn’t automatically mean U.S. talent had to decline, yet that’s exactly what’s happening. Just because Luka Doncic exists, doesnt mean there can not be a Kobe in the US born at the same time.
This isn’t a case of “Americans look worse by comparison.” They are worse, unless you genuinely believe today’s top U.S. players are on the same level as previous generations.
Why is US. player development failing?
In 2009, you had more superstar-level players drafted in one year than in the entire last decade. Unless American kids suddenly became worse athletes or lost their genetics, there has to be a systemic reason for this.
So let’s break down what actually determines whether a 10-year-old ends up as a pro:
1) Physical traits – Will they have NBA level body and athleticism later on?
2) Work ethic – Do they have the necessary work ethic and drive to work on their game
3) Natural talent – Not everyone is born with the same talent, some learn faster, adapt quicker and so on
4) Quality of development – How good is the coaching, the youth development program, how are they developing their skills
Only when these four come together can a player reach the pro level. Some are more important than others, but I would argue all 4 must exist for a kid to become pro
Im just making up numbers rn, but lets just say an average kid in the US has a 1% chance of having a NBA body later, of those only 30% have the necessary work ethic, of those only 20% have the natural given talent. And then you add quality of development and lets say that of those kids that fullfill the first criterias and in theory have perfect individual requirements, there is a 40% chance of them becoming a pro due to the quality of training they get.
So for a random kid, the likelihood of becoming a pro with these made up numbers is:
0,01*0,3*0,2*0,4 = 0,024%
Actually, when I think about it the numbers I made up actually seem correct lol. Because there are 500,000 High School Players in the US. They make up 4 birth years. In the NBA we have around 300 US players. And in the NBA there are probably around 13 evenly distributed birth years. So around 3 times the birth years of High School. So out of 1,500,000 High School players that made up these 13 birth years, only 300 are currently in the NBA. So the likelihood of a US High School player becoming a NBA player is around 0,02%
And when you then want to find out how many NBA level players a country can produce, you have to add a 5th variable into the formula, which is size of player pool. So if the likelihood of a single kid becoming an NBA level player is 0,02%, you multiply this with the number of kids that play organised Basketball to find out how many NBA level players a country can produce. So now we have 5 variables.
Now back to the question, as to why the US seems to not be able to produce more superstars:
What of the above variables can actually be influenced? How can a country effect the number of players / superstars? I would argue the first three are mostly innate and dependent on the individual kid. You can’t control genetics or work ethic or talent.So the only variables that that can be influenced systematically is the quality of development and the size of the player pool.
The US system: Quantity over quality
In the US, kids develop through school sports. This system has its advantages and disadvantages.
The one huge advantage: Every kid gets a chance to play. With 500,000 high school players, there’s almost no chance that elite physical talent goes unnoticed. If you have the talent, you will participate in school sports and will be discovered. There is a low number of undiscovered talents.
And we know that of the 2 variables we can influence (development and player pool) the player pool can not be the culprit, because of the above reason and also due to big genereal population. The US has by far the biggest player pool. I know the numbers from Turkey and in Turkey there are around 8,000 High School aged kids that play organised Basketball. So its 500,000 in the US vs. 8,000 in Turkey. And that's not even counting kids who play street ball only. Its a massive difference.
So for this variable we know, the US will always be the best, so this variable can not be the issue, no other country has the sheer size of player pool as the US.
So that leaves us with the last variable Quality of player development program. And that leads us to the one big disadvantage of the school system: Subpar coaching and development.
Because how is it in Europe? In Europe there are no school sports. Development is not done in schools, its done in sports clubs. So imagine if the Lakers had a U12 team, that's where the players are developed. This has one massive disadvantage compared to the US: Kids have to actively decide to join a Basketball club. There is the potential of not discovering natural born talents because they simply never play Basketball and since there is no school sports, there is no chance of discovering them there. So it leads to a naturally way lower player pool size.
BUT, there is one massive advantage: Coaching and player development
In the US if a kid starts Basketball at a random primary school, their coach is often times just a random dad. Even at higher levels, you rarely get the professional, full-time development environment that European club systems provide, where coaching, nutrition, analytics, and individual skill work are handled professionally. These european clubs spend huge amounts on their development programs. I mean imagine if the Lakers had a U10 team, they would have the best youth coaches available, they would have individual skill trainers, the facilities would be top notch, they would have nutritionists etc. How can a random school in the US keep up with that? They can't.
The US wins on player pool size but loses badly on the individual development of the kids. In Europe there are fewer kids playing Basketball, but the few kids that do play Basketball get a much higher and better level of coaching.
But why is it worse now? - The death of streetball and rise of video games
The U.S. always had this school-based system, yet it still produced superstars in the past. So what changed? Something must be different now
My theory: Kids stopped playing streetball and started playing Fortnite instead.
Fortnite bit is a bit of a clickbait but hear me out. I mentioned that player development is the culprit, but player development is not only done in schools or clubs and thats the big misunderstanding that leads to the issue. One big aspect of player development is street ball. And that's the real culprit. Or rather the lack of street ball. Streetball used to be the missing piece, it was the “unofficial” player development program that made up for weak coaching in the US. Kids would play 1v1, 3v3, and pickup games for hours every day. By the time they reached 18, they had thousands of hours of real, instinctive basketball experience. Thousands of hours that are missing now. Why? Because kids dont go outside anymore, they dont play street ball anymore, instead they play Fortnite and video games all day.
I would spent the entire afternoon after school playing Football outside as a kid. For years. Now? I dont know the last time I saw kids play football on the streets in Germany or Turkey.
So whether or not video games are the reason for it who knows, but certainly kids just dont spend that much time playing street ball anymore and that's the real issue and reason for the lack of superstars
Why this doesn't effect Europe as much
And I think we and especially the US has massively underestimated how important this aspect was to developing players. Because when you think about it, which skills are developed playing street ball? 1v1, Iso Ball. So everything that is important for a true superstar. Thousands of hours until they reach age of 18 of playing 1v1, 3v3 and Iso Ball. Now missing.
But kids in Europe also play video games all day? So why are they still producing superstars? Because In europe you can make up for this with the development in the clubs that is top notch. You have analysts and the national federation who can analyse these trends and developments and adjust their training methods to make up for the lack of street ball. And then you have top coaches and trainers who can apply this in the clubs. I know this is the case in Football, in Europe the federations have noticed the lack of superstar talents in the birth years 1993-1998 and analysed that the reason for this was missing street football and many countries have adapted their training methods to make up for this. This is the same case in Basketball, which is why you still have top superstars come out of Europe, simply because the development in the clubs is top notch and can make up for it.
The US didn’t adapt and can't make up for it. Because when your development happens in schools, and your coach is a random dad who only cares about winning, there’s no system in place to fix that loss of thousands of hours of individual training and development done in the streets.
Now, the only contact for kids with Basketball is in the school, outside of school they play video games all day. Back in the day, the development in the schools also was bad, but the kids still were great individually and in 1v1 and just skill wise, because they accumulated thousands of hours playing against their friends on the street which is now missing.
And when you think about it, when did superstar development get bad in the US? Around the 2013 draft, so birth years after 1993 suck in the US.
This is around the last generation that still grew up on the streets. The younger millenials. The ones born after were starting to be more and more addicted to video games and at the latest kids born after 1998 simply did not go out that much anymore.
And its also exactly the same birth years that are so bad in european Football. The level of individual talent in the birth years 1993-1999 is at an all time low in Football (with few exceptions). Because of the exact same reason and phenomenon. But in Football or in Europe in general, clubs and federations have started counter measures to make up for this and therefore the individual talent has gone up again a lot in newer birth years.
The US is still the #1 producer of talent simply because of the sheer quantity of kids playing Basketball. But it is missing that "it" factor that came with street ball, where exactly these superstar skills were honed that the High School system can not make up for.
The Relative Age Effect and win first mentality in school
Another big issue is the fact that school coaches usually don't care about developing the players. They are in a win now mode.
So you might have a situation where you have a very talented kid, but he can be a late bloomer. Maybe he is younger than the others so he is not as good at this stage. But in theory he has much better talent. But the dad does not care about that, he only plays the best players at the very moment. This can be a fat, premature 6 feet tall 10 year old with 0 talent. But he will get the win at that stage. While the 5 feet late bloomer is ignored. And when this kid does not even play street ball, where will his talent be developed and honed? It will not be, it will be lost or at best underdeveloped.
In the past, this kid would still play Basketball outside of school for thousnads of hours and eventually catch up.
So the relative age effect is in full effect in the US, coaches tend to play the premature kids more than the late bloomer talented one.
In the european club system, coaches have a long-term incentive to develop those late bloomers, they might become stars for the same club at the senior level one day. But in US schools, coaches just want wins now. So raw, late-blooming talent gets lost early.
TLDR: The Domino Effect
- Kids don’t go outside anymore --> no more streetball hours.
Thousands of accumulated hours of creativity and skill training on the street is lost --> Random schools with random ego driven dads as coaches can't make up for this lack of training hours
Europe has professional clubs with professional coaches, nutritionists, full squad of individual trainers, analysts etc. --> they can compensate for missing streetball.
The US system can’t, and superstar creation collapsed after around the 1993/1994 birth years, exactly when kids stopped playing outside.
The US still produces talent through sheer numbers and the huge player pool, but the “it” factor that is developed mainly through thousands of hours of streetball is missing now.
References and numbers
I asked ChatGPT whether there are studies and research that shows whether kids actually play less outside, or if its just my imagination
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In the U.S., kids spend significantly less time playing outside than in the past.
Data from the Outdoor Foundation shows that while overall participation in outdoor activities has grown slightly, the average number of outdoor outings per person has dropped about 25% over the last decade (from ~84 per year around 2012 to ~62 in 2023). Studies also show that unstructured outdoor play—like playing sports on the street—has steadily declined since the 1980s, replaced by organized sports, indoor recreation, and screen time. In short, American kids today go outside less often, play more under supervision, and spend less time in spontaneous physical play than previous generations.
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So yes, research supports my claim that kids play less outside and on the street and participate more in organised sports instead. But when this development in the organised sport sucks (the how and why I mentioned my post) than this will lead to a worse result than in the past.
You cant play until the sunlight goes off at school. You have set practice times. So this endless hours and hours of outside play, street ball is missing. Obviously this will have a negative effect.
I also asked ChatGPT whether there are any articles that touch on simliar points and thoughts:
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https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/06/30/heir-ball-how-the-cost-of-youth-sports-is-changing-the-nba?utm_source=chatgpt.com
In another recent piece, also in The New Yorker, by Jay Caspian Kang titled “Heir Ball: How the Cost of Youth Sports Is Changing the NBA”, the author speaks to how former stars like LeBron James credit their early pickup/street games (“21”, etc) as formative — and contrasts that with today’s more structured, coached, indoor youth-sport environment. “I didn’t have a basketball trainer … my basketball training was just being on the court,
Even LeBron agrees with me lol. He says development is more structured now, kids play more indoor organised ball. And my argument is that this indoor organised ball is of high quality in Europe --> Therefore barely any negative effect of missing street ball. But it is of clearly negative quality in the US --> Clear negative effect cause the high school with the random coaches can not offer the kind of development that would be needed
https://akjournals.com/view/journals/1020/1/1/article-p45.xml?utm_source=chatgpt.com
Seems like this research paper is touching on the exact same point and thought
There’s also an academic piece: “A need for reviving street sports…” by A. Tóth (2024) which argues that street sports participation (not just basketball) has declined in the digital age, and this decline has broader developmental implications
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-city-game-basketball-new-york?utm_source=chatgpt.com
Article from 2015. Even then already this was starting to become more evident
In an article for The New Yorker titled “The City Game?”, journalist Thomas Beller reflects on how New York’s playground courts once produced top-level talent — and notes that they’re “looking emptier in recent years.” He links this decline of street-level play with the changing nature of how players are developed
